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Kate McNamara Has Ambitious Ideas About What Harvard’s Carpenter Center Can Be

"What has become increasingly clear to me is that it is not a singular institution, but a constellation of relationships that can be more intentionally activated."

A few weeks ago, Harvard’s Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts (which develops artist and curator lectures, workshops and other arts programming) announced the appointment of Kate McNamara as its John R. and Barbara Robinson Family Director. McNamara brings with her an impressive resume; many New Yorkers will remember her from her curatorial roles at MoMA PS1 and Participant INC. We caught up with her to hear about this new phase of her career and her thoughts on the Josh Kline essay that has enraptured the art world.

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Congratulations on the new gig! You’re stepping into this role following a period in which you performed it in an interim capacity. What have you learned about it since then that’s surprised you?

Having had the opportunity to serve in an interim capacity over the past year, I was able to spend meaningful time both observing and actively engaging the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts as a very specific kind of ecology. What has become increasingly clear to me is that it is not a singular institution, but a constellation of relationships that can be more intentionally activated. Alongside the internal structure of the unique building itself, which brings together the exhibition program, the Department of Art, Film and Visual Studies, and the Harvard Film Archive in close proximity, I’ve been interested in how we situate the Carpenter Center within the broader cultural and civic landscape of Cambridge and Boston. Over the past year, I’ve made a concerted effort to build and strengthen relationships with neighboring civic and cultural spaces, including the Cambridge Public Library and the wider Harvard community, including the Harvard Art Museums.

What has emerged is an opportunity to actively build and deepen these relationships, extending initiatives outward and inward in ways that are less about boundaries and more about creating sustained forms of invitation and exchange. It also feels important to acknowledge the broader context of the Cambridge-Boston area, which has, over the past two decades, developed an extraordinary commitment to contemporary art in ways that were not always as visible or interconnected. Within that, there is a real opportunity for the Carpenter Center to both contribute to and help shape a more connected, porous and generative field of practice.

The Carpenter Center sits inside Harvard but serves audiences well beyond it. How do you intend to balance the needs of students and faculty against those of the greater Boston community and the international art world?

What has been important for me in this role is listening closely to faculty and staff within the Department of Art, Film and Visual Studies, to students, and also to audiences across the greater Boston area and the international art world. Rather than thinking of these as separate constituencies that need to be “balanced” against one another, I am interested in building responsive and layered modes of programming that meaningfully speak to each of these publics, often simultaneously. This has meant leaning more deeply into what a “center” can be: a place for experimentation, long-form inquiry and research-driven artistic practice. One of the most exciting aspects of the Carpenter Center is the ability to bring artists into sustained proximity with the university, creating the........

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